Rural women: striving for gender transformative impacts

In his first contribution, Mahesh stresses that current interventions are not designed towards attaining early gender-transformative impacts. He points out that the traditional division of work still prevails in many societies, with women being responsible for productive tasks such as cattle feeding and the collection of fuelwood. Women themselves often even agree with this situation; in order to change this mindset they need access to education, which will empower them to look for more productive and skilled work.

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In his second contribution, Mahesh points to the important role ICTs have in achieving gender-transformative impacts, and shares a number of articles on this topic. He points out that social media challenge established patterns and encourage women to be more assertive, which sometimes makes men feel uncomfortable.

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In his third contribution, Mahesh points to the fact that entrepreneurship programmes are mostly focused on men, while women find themselves engaged in menial jobs lacking the potential to turn them into entrepreneurs. Girls should be made aware of the importance of economic independence and the value of income generating skills from an early age. Additionally, Mahesh shares links to information on a couple of programmes focused on women’s empowerment and dairy cooperatives in India.

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Over the last decade, the countryside of Chile has become increasingly feminized as men have left in search for better job opportunities. In general, Chilean women are still responsible for reproductive and care tasks. However, over time women’s access to education has increased as during the 1990s, the government has supported a substantial expansion of schools in rural areas. It also has encouraged agricultural institutions to implement activities aimed at rural and indigenous women.

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Bertha underlines the importance of education and skills, and in particular the need for young girls to get familiar with ICTs, especially considering the ageing of the female rural population.

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Byansi discusses the situation in her home country Tanzania and argues that in some tribes, female circumcision is still a widespread practice. Another problem concerns the fact that women do not have access to quality education and resources. She argues that extension services should reach out to women and girls and that the growing agribusiness sector could engage more with women, who should form groups to make their voice heard. Additionally, instead of using men to solve women’s problems, women themselves should be allowed to solve their challenges.

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Dr. Amanullah stresses that in rural areas, job opportunities for women are lacking and that religious norms do not allow women to move freely in society. Furthermore, he stresses the need to adopt context-specific approaches to gender inequality.

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Peter shares his experience of working with smallholder coffee producers in Kenya, where coffee was traditionally considered a “male crop” and where men owned the bank accounts, constraining women to profit from the income earned. In order to address this issue, the company Peter has worked for has introduced the Gender Action Learning System, which has the aim to encourage men and women to have common visions, and to plan on how to achieve those visions, while analysing the family issues that can hinder this. The approach has yielded positive results, such as providing women with access to the income earned and a lower work burden for women.

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Kala elaborates upon the situation in Nepal, where the feminisation of rural areas due to male outmigration leads women to be recognized as temporary heads of the household. However, these women are generally subject to negative public scrutiny and discrimination. Kala argues that current programmes are focused on safer migration and channelling remittances into productive investment, but this will not be sufficient to bring a change in women’s discrimination; it will rather change its form. Furthermore, rather than only empowering women and promoting access to education, to achieve gender equality male family members need to be targeted as well. According to Kala, “we advance in technology and education but lack the wisdom on analysing discriminatory practices and actions”.  

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Ekaterine raises the question of how to help rural women gain self-respect and understanding of their role in the family and society.

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Cathy highlights that land tenure is crucial for women’s security, and argues that addressing this issue requires the establishment of legal frameworks that grant and protect women’s rights in this regard. However, these frameworks must be addressed in conjunction with other laws that affect women, such as marriage and inheritance laws, and women must receive education and guidance about their tenure rights. Furthermore, she addresses the question raised by Ekaterine, pointing out that worldwide, many grassroots women's groups are organizing and formulating solutions to the challenges they encounter, and that “having women empower women with similar circumstances works”.

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Atika believes that certain components of projects should exclusively target women, which will allow them to gain better access to and benefit more from project opportunities.

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